Always Be Loving

by Chariji, February 15, 2013, Manapakkam, Chennai, India.

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Dear brothers and sisters,

As you all know, today is a very auspicious day. Babuji Maharaj has written that on this most auspicious occasion, Lalaji Maharaj descended on Earth specifically to help human beings to accept the spiritual life, walk on it behind the Master who is always the guide, and try to reach the destination in this lifetime. In this lifetime – this was emphasised again and again by Babuji Maharaj, because we have no surety about the next life. It is not merely that religions, several of them, don’t accept reincarnation – Christianity, for instance. Also, as Babuji Maharaj said, “Even for those who believe in reincarnation, how can they be sure that they will be here on earth again, and have the services of a really qualified guru, master, to help them? It's very uncertain. In this life itself we do not know what is going to happen the next moment.

When we started satsangh, we did not know it was going to rain. It is very welcome because, among the Hindus, it is most auspicious and a sign of blessing that when we celebrate a great occasion like this, it should rain. Particularly so because it is unseasonal – nobody expects rain in the middle of February.

So we are all very fortunate indeed to have taken human birth, to have found a guru and, most importantly, to have let the divine spark in our heart speak to us however feebly, but strong enough to bring us on this path. Babuji Maharaj would say, in his very sweet way with a smile: “Congratulations to you all,” but he would also add that the journey is not over. It goes on and on. That is why his book is called Towards Infinity – because it is really an infinite journey.

But this human birth is also the most difficult life to handle. The lesser forms – the animals, the birds, the insects – they all evolve naturally to the human state. And here we are caught in a trap – a trap of desire and ego. Ego is the most troublesome and almost impossible barrier to overcome on our spiritual path.

The Whispers, which are coming now for the last four or five months every day, give us not only the wisdom of the great Masters above [clap of thunder], but also shows the sense of urgency that they feel for us. Again and again the message says: Human life is an uncertain thing. Don’t waste your time in flippant activities seeking pleasure, comfort. Spend every moment of it in the spiritual way – not by sitting in meditation for twenty-four hours, but in constant remembrance.

Constant remembrance is not easy, but Babuji Maharaj has said, “If you can practise it successfully for one week then it is permanent. You cannot let it go.” It's like breathing. When we are born, the baby starts breathing, and it stops only when its life on earth has ended. If at any moment in the middle it stops, you cannot say he is alive. It is like a plane journey; once it takes off it cannot stop in the air anywhere, not even for a briefest moment. [Thunder] Its next stop is at its destination.

So our spiritual journey must be like that. We start to fly with both wings, controlling both, regulating both, and we fly only to the destination where our physical journey ends. No stop in between, no break, no holiday. Some abhyasis ask me [very loud thunder] if they can stop meditation for a week. Let us say they want to go on their honeymoon. Now there are two things in this request for a holiday. They don’t want to meditate… and because something tells them that what is happening in a honeymoon is a waste of time. It is seeking to condense the pleasure that should be spread out over several years into a week or two. Things in life cannot be condensed like that. If you seek to take all the pleasures that you are destined to in one life and like to live it in a week, then of course misery, illness will and must follow. It is wise to allow nature to take its own course, undisturbed by desire. If human beings would learn to let nature rule their lives, as in the case of animals and birds, what happens on a honeymoon would lose its importance, because it is nothing but an act of procreation to preserve the species and to move on.

Animals have a brief period of mating once a year – feverish, and then it is finished for the rest of the year. I remember George Bernard Shaw saying that there are only two things in nature which have no mating season: the human being and the donkey. We are all donkeys in human form when we insist on the pleasure of the bed [thunder] being repeated again and again without control, without even any pleasure in it, using it as a valve to let go of our frustrations and our tensions. This is not wise; we cannot say even that it is animal because animals seem to have been blessed with more sense in this matter.

Worse than this physical, shall I say, intoxication with the pleasures of life, is the ego, because the ego rules us. It is the ego which makes a man assert and be assertive. The western world teaches students how to be assertive, how to climb the ladder even at the cost of other human beings, so that they can reach the top and rule and, of course, make money. The whole modern education tends to focus on the ego – not on perfection, which is good, but on domination. “You are the dominant person in this class.” “You are the dominant person in this business, or in the profession.” And we are rewarded for our dominant qualities, which are so bad for others, which only puff up our ego more and more, until we become what we call in our mythological world language – raakshasas, asuras [demons] – men with enormous power of the ego but no wisdom, who eventually destroy themselves, but only after they have destroyed others.

Never speak an unkind word. Never! Always be loving. Because it is not you who love, it is His love which flows through your heart. And if you don’t allow it to flow through your heart, you are condemning yourself to a loveless life, a life without love. It is like a river which has no water. What is the use? A dry riverbed is of no use. If you can see the riverbed, then where is the water?

So when there is the ego, there is no love, only so-called total concentration on yourself, self-seeking, self-dominant, powerful, hateful, never able to show your heart to others. Therefore, people say he is a heartless fellow, or she is a heartless person. And a heartless person never goes anywhere. A dry river doesn’t go anywhere; it is the water in the river which goes somewhere – to the ocean.

So if our heart is there and love does not flow through it from Divinity to everybody on earth, every form of life on earth, it is like a dry riverbed – not going anywhere. It's a riverbed not going anywhere. So beware of using your egos; beware of flaunting your education or your dominance; beware of being unkind to others, ungenerous to others. Give as much as you can, not merely of material things, but of your heart.

The heart only gives; it never takes. In the river, the water flows from up to down, never backwards. Similarly, love flows from Him through us, never from... He or she who expects love from others is like a river wanting the waters to flow backwards – which is not possible, which is against nature, and which is against Divinity. The law says: “Allow love from Him to flow through you to all human beings, animals, plants, trees, insects.” That is why when we think of the law which says, especially the Christian commandments, ‘thou shalt not kill’ it does not mean thou shalt not kill human beings; otherwise it should have said so. ‘Thou shalt not kill’ means what? Everything! Otherwise we are saying ‘thou shalt not kill’ means only human beings, because we are a protected race. Who protects us when we kill everything in nature? Killing doesn’t mean only with a sword or with a gun; killing means with a dominant ego killing the spirit of another human being. Destroying his peace of mind, making him less than human, treating him as less than human, you have killed that person.

I remember there was a tennis character known as Mr John McEnroe. His father told him to kill the opposition, in a game, mind you – tennis. They are taught to kill the opposition, even in a game of tennis! That is the dominant ego. And again and again, he was not satisfied with one Wimbledon victory; he had to repeat it six times or seven times. And where did he end? Today we don’t know what happened to him. Perhaps he is in some isolated big room like a chairman or a managing director of a company, thinking he is a great person because he is alone in a big room with all comforts. It is a prison filled with comforts. If a jailbird is in a jail, in a prison, in a small room without comforts, these people, the great people who have stepped on the shoulders of others and achieved big positions – they are lonely, isolated in big rooms full of comfort, air-conditioning, beautiful furniture, statues, what have you, but nothing here in the heart, because they never gave anything through here. This has closed up because nothing will flow through it.

So I repeat again, beware! Beware of not loving. It does not mean you love only your wife or your children or your family; it means, without difference love all. Like the river flows – the water is available to the king, to the beggar, to everything in between. Anybody who wants water, takes.

That is why on such holy occasions, and even when we sit for meditation, we feel the presence of the Great Master. How else do we feel the Presence? If you have flowers, everybody smells the flowers. It is not only the owner’s flower. He cannot say, “O rose, you shall not smell good to others, only to me.” It will only be a paper flower, not a real flower – which means that Reality is only in that which is for all. Anything which is only for you or for one or for family, is artificial, not natural.

We must live naturally, which means the fragrance of the flower in the house, the food in the house, it must flow to all; it is for all who need it. It is for all, it flows whether people take it or not. It is like the sun which shines. It will shine when there is nobody on earth. It will continue to shine because that is its nature. Similarly, our nature must be…

Love flows without looking for who takes it. “No, no, I have no lover. How can I love without a lover?” That is not love; that is affection; that is dependence; that is physical. In its worst form, it is sex. I wonder how this purely physical thing came to be called love-making. I don’t know how anybody can make love. God is love. He doesn’t make love, He is. When we allow love to flow through us we also become love – no more identity, no more differentiation of form, of colour, of race. As we say in Sahaj Marg, there is no distinction of colour, race, caste, sex, anything. We start in the very beginning with this concept that we are all one, and by developing the ability to open our hearts until it becomes like a flood, we can progressively grow in some way to be like the Divinity from where everything flows.

This is our journey – from a rock-like heart which you cannot even break open with dynamite, to a tender human heart which allows everything to flow through it, without distinction of not merely race, caste, and sex, but even of the form of life. Your love goes to your cows, your love goes to your garden and they flourish because of love – not because of the water you give or the people who take scissors and prune everything. You understand?

So this is our destination and today, which seems to be specially blessed, I pray for you all to reach that destination.

Please read Whispers carefully. Many people know, even Babuji Maharaj repeats, that good things must be repeated again and again, because we tend to forget. You are driving on a road, speed limit forty, in miles, you see it and you say, “Yes” and you press the accelerator and you are going at sixty, at seventy, the excuse being that the road is beautiful and there is no traffic. And suddenly something comes from the side road, a bullock cart; there is a big accident. You know what happens. This is a daily affair. People imagine that what they do not see does not exist. Just because a bullock cart or a tractor comes from a side road, they think it is not there and they keep their foot on the pedal pressed harder and harder, and before they know it, they don’t even know there has been an accident, because often they are dead.

It is not merely knowing the law – it is following the law, it is observing the law, it is obeying the law. And the first law, the only law of life is: let love flow through you to everybody.

Thank you.